World is “miles short” of emissions targets to curb climate change, says UN, warns

Paris – Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will peak by 2023, the United Nations warned on Monday, saying countries are “miles” short of what is needed to stop them. destructive global warming.

Levels of the three major greenhouse gases — heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — all increased again last year, said the World Meteorological Organization, the UN’s weather and climate agency.

Carbon dioxide was accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever, rising by more than 10 percent in two decades, it added.

And a separate UN report found that it does not mean that there is a 43% reduction in greenhouse gases needed by 2030 to avoid the worst global warming.

Action as it is would only lead to a 2.6 percent decline this decade from 2019 levels.

“The report’s findings are clear but not surprising – current climate plans fall miles short of what is needed to stop global warming from crippling entire economies and destroying billions of people and lives in every country,” said UN climate chief Simon Stiell.

I two reports it comes a few weeks before the COP29 climate conference of the United Nations in Azerbaijan and as countries prepare to submit updated national climate plans in early 2025.

“Bold” plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must now be implemented, Stiell said, calling for an end to the “era of scarcity.”

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries said they would limit global warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius above levels between 1850 and 1900 — and 1.5C if possible.

But so far, their actions have failed to meet that challenge.

Existing national commitments will see 51.5 billion tons of CO2 and its equivalent of other greenhouse gases emitted by 2030 — levels that “will ensure a human and economic train wreck in every country, without exception,” Stiell said.

As long as emissions continue, greenhouse gases will continue to accumulate in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, the WMO said.

Last year, global land and sea temperatures were the highest on record dating back to 1850, it added.

WMO chief Celeste Saulo said the world is “clearly on track” to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, adding that greenhouse gas emissions “should ring alarm bells among decision-makers.”

“CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than at any time during the human lifetime,” the report said, adding that the current level of CO2 in the atmosphere was 51 percent higher than in the pre-industrial era.

The last time the Earth encountered the same CO2 was three to five million years ago, when temperatures were two to three degrees warmer and sea levels were 65 meters above present, it said.

Given how long CO2 stays in the atmosphere, current temperatures will continue for decades, even if emissions are rapidly reduced to zero.

In 2023, CO2 concentrations were at 420 parts per million (ppm), methane at 1,934 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide at 336 parts per billion.

CO2 accounts for about 64 percent of the global warming effect.

Its annual increase of 2.3 ppm marked the 12th consecutive year of increases greater than 2 ppm — an average caused by “higher CO2 emissions in the 2010s and 2020s,” the report said.

Just under half of the CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, while the rest is absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems.

Climate change itself could soon “cause the environment to become a major source of greenhouse gases,” warned WMO deputy chief Ko Barret.

“Wildfires can release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, while warmer oceans may absorb less CO2. As a result, more CO2 can remain in the atmosphere to accelerate global warming.